The John Locke Foundation's ongoing efforts to scuttle climate action

Speaking of climate matters, I had a story published this week over at the Institute for Southern Studies' Facing South blog about the John Locke Foundation's fossil-fuel-funded efforts to scuttle state attempts to rein in greenhouse gas pollution -- a story I've been following here (and here and here) for awhile now.

My report has been picked up by numerous other blogs, including Exxonsecrets, BlueNC, Solve Climate, the News & Observer's Under the Dome, and WUNC's Isaac Hunter's Tavern (whose rather puzzling take on the issues I raised prompted this response from my Institute co-worker Chris Kromm).

There's been an especially interesting and still-ongoing discussion about my story over at Ed Cone's excellent blog. It included a lengthy response from Locke Executive Director John Hood in which he called the Institute a "kook" organization, accused me of being an "anti-Christian bigot" (which will probably surprise my former colleagues at the faith-based organization where I worked for some five years before going to j-school), and attempted to connect the Institute to Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (!).

The climate skeptics are clearly growing desperate to resort to such personal and off-base attacks, yet ironically they are demanding politeness -- from me! So, for the record, I do not think Hood is a kook, a bigot or a dictator-lover. But I do think his organization's stance on global warming is driven by its own free-market fundamentalist ideology and that of its funders rather than respect for science. And given the clear scientific evidence that the climate crisis is worsening due to human activity, I think that's dangerous.